This invention relates to a spike reclaiming machine for preparing railroad spikes for reuse. More specifically, it relates to a rail spike cleaning apparatus.
The use of spikes to stabilize rails on a railroad track is well known. Such spikes are used to hold tie plates in position on the railroad ties on the bed of the railroad track.
After a railroad track has been used sufficiently, components of the track begin to wear out. Accordingly, it is necessary to occasionally pull out the spikes holding the tie plates to the ties for repair or maintenance purposes.
As part of the repair or maintenance process, various machines have been use to reclaim spikes and/or tie plates so that they may be reused. For example, the present inventor's prior U.S. Pat. 4,225,429 issued on September 30, 1980 entitled "VEHICLE FOR CLEANING RAILWAY ROADBEDS OF MAGNETIC ARTICLES" shows an arrangement using a magnetic wheel in combination with a conveyor belt in order to pick up magnetic articles from a railway roadbed. The present inventor's prior U.S. Pat. 4,478,152 issued on October 23, 1984 entitled "RAILROAD SCRAP PICKUP MACHINE" discloses an arrangement for picking up magnetic articles from a railway roadbed. The arrangement uses a magnetic wheel connected to a stripper tray for depositing the magnetic articles upon a conveyor belt. These two prior patents are hereby incorporated by reference.
The use of batch-type tumblers in order to clean spikes or other articles reclaimed as part of a rail maintenance or improvement project involving so-called "tie gangs" is well known. Such tie gangs include a series of different machines which are used as part of an overall process of replacing damaged ties. The tumblers have previously been used to clean off the spikes by placing them in a rotatable drum or other container which then rotates in such a way as to cause them to have tumbling action. The spikes are loaded in a batch into the tumbler and are removed after halting of the tumbling action following a sufficient period of tumbling so as to clean off the spikes.
After the cleaning of the spikes, the spikes are generally inspected and sorted into spikes which are suitable for reuse and those spikes which are in such poor condition that they are discarded or used for scrap metal.
Although prior techniques have been generally useful at reclaiming spikes, they have been subject to a number of disadvantages. In particular, the loading and unloading of the batch tumblers is a time consuming process. Further, various prior techniques for reclaiming spikes have been quite labor-intensive such that the reclaiming of the spikes is not as economical as would be the case if reclaiming could be performed without requiring as much worker time. Other factors such as the use of different machines for picking up the spikes and for cleaning the spikes have also contributed to the cost associated with the reclamation process.